Crossing a microscope with a camera gives you a micrograph, a tiny photograph that allows artists and scientists to show the beauty inaccessible to the naked eye. Every year the Small World competition run by optics giant Nikon celebrates this hidden world. This year the winners range from an anglerfish ovary to the sex organs of plants via a rusted old coin.

This section of flower stem from a spiny sowthistle was photographed by Gerd Guenther of Dusseldorf, Germany.

Guenther used a "dark field" microscopy technique whereby the sample is illuminated, but only light that is scattered by objects will reach the camera. This gives a brightly lit sample contrasted against a black background.